skills

Amazon is making it easier for Echo and Alexa-powered device owners to find voice apps that extend the functionality of its virtual assistant. The company recently launched a new feature that has Alexa making suggestions of third-party skills to try in response to certain questions. In other words, if you ask Alexa to do something that she’s not capable of, she’ll point you to a… Read More

Amazon today announced a new program that gives developers a way to earn money for their Alexa skills – the voice apps that run on smart speakers like the Echo, and other Alexa-powered devices. According to the company, developers will be compensated for top-performing and “engaging” voice apps across over a half-dozen categories, including games, which were previously… Read More

A new voice app from Life Bot wants to make it easier to use Amazon Alexa as a digital assistant, by aiding with your daily routines and learning your personal preferences. At launch, Life Bot’s Alexa app has a handful of tricks up its sleeve. But Life Bot’s longer-term ambition is to learn from its users, then be able to kick-off personalized workflows with a single voice command. Read More

Amazon has quietly launched a new program that will directly pay developers building high-quality Alexa skills — the voice-activated apps for Alexa-powered devices like the Amazon Echo speaker and related products. This is the first time Amazon has offered a means for Alexa developers to monetize their skills on its app store. Read More

Amazon this morning rolled out new tools for developers of Alexa apps, aka “Skills,” which aim to give them more insight into their app’s users, as well as allow them to build location-based skills. The first is a new metrics dashboard – similar to those used by developers of mobile applications, but designed for these voice apps – which lets Alexa developers… Read More

The next mainstream computing platform may not be bots, AR, or VR, but rather voice-based computing. According to a new state of the industry report from VoiceLabs, it’s estimated that there will be 24.5 million voice-first devices shipped this year, which will lead to a total device footprint of 33 million devices in circulation.
If the prediction holds true, this would be a… Read More

Bootstrapping London-based startup GigRove is looking to carve out a niche in the collaborative consumption space as a matching platform for digital workers with itchy feet and startups with a spare room and pressing skills need. Which is all very zeitgeisty in these digital nomad/citizen of nowhere times. Read More

While UK tech founders continue to try to second guess what ‘Brexit means Brexit’ actually means for the future of immigration and access to talent, the UK’s digital minister, Matt Hancock, has confirmed it will not mean a clone of the Australian points-based immigration system – despite politicians frequently citing this system as a possible model for the UK to… Read More

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It will now be easier to add “Skills” – new functionality by way of voice-activated apps to Amazon’s smart speaker Echo, and its other Alexa-powered devices, Amazon announced this morning. The company has finally given its Skills “app store” a makeover, and is introducing a means of adding new Skills by voice, too.
Amazon’s Echo and other Alexa… Read More

Amazon’s Echo speaker, and its descendents, Dot and Tap, are growing in popularity as consumers’ preferred “smart” speakers and the voice computing platform for the home. But they’re also encouraging a wave of developer interest, in the form of add-ons dubbed “skills” which allow you to teach Amazon’s personal assistant Alexa new tricks, like… Read More

Can Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa serve as a matchmaker? That’s the idea behind The Blind Date Club, a project from a team of coders presenting today at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 Hackathon. Designed as a voice-activated app for the Echo speaker, The Blind Date Club lets you search for dating profiles by voice, have them read aloud to you, and then get connected with… Read More

The U.K.-based startup founders and investors who penned an open letter backing the Conservatives at the General Election in May are now confronted with the prospect of a Tory government looking for ways to make it harder for businesses to recruit and bring non-EU workers to the U.K. — owing to a political push to reduce net migration. Read More

A tech industry-backed, U.K. government-funded initiative offering free online courses to those wanting to learn commercial digital business skills goes live today, aiming to upskill Brits to work for tech companies or even start their own startup. Read More

Everyone knows that the educational system in the U.S. hasn’t changed much in, oh, the last 100 years. And that there’s a lot of inertia within the system, gumming the gears and slowing its transformation. But rather than change for change’s own sake — or because everything technology does is great! — the current system just isn’t working anymore. Drop out… Read More

Thanks to the steady march of technology into the world of education, it’s a great time to be a lifelong learner. Today, there are a growing number of platforms that allow us to search and discover (quality) learning content, across a wide variety of topics. Plus, thanks to the advance of technology that enables the speedy production and distribution of video at scale, the… Read More

With the war for talent alive and well and jobs sites continuing to leave more than a little to be desired, San Francisco-based Venturocket is announcing today that it has raised $700K in Series A financing for its unique spin on matching job seekers with the most relevant opportunities. The round was led by Runa Capital, with contributions from Talent Equity Ventures, an affiliate of Ward… Read More

Tapping into the growth of online education, Skillshare launched in 2011 on a mission to build a digital marketplace for knowledge. Yet, instead of going in the direction of traditional online education or the new generation of MOOC platforms like Coursera and Udacity, Skillshare eschewed hosting classes in traditional education subjects to instead offer classes that teach people real-world… Read More

South Korean electronics giant Samsung — which makes pretty much every gadget and gizmo you can think of from mobile phones to household refrigerators and even tanks — is on a graduate recruitment drive aimed at further strengthening its North American business, according to the Korea Times. Specifically Samsung Electronics is seeking to hire post-grads who hold either a… Read More